


Tumbling Water

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Absent Characters, F/F, F/M, Kid Fic, OT3, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes things don't go as planned. Collected short writings focusing on an OT3 and their child. It will lack linearity, but everything lines up eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. seasick

The first few weeks of their travels with Isabela had been met with a terrible bout of seasickness and with a woman who, while soothing their queasy aches with a warm rubbing hand would chidingly laugh at the same time.

“Pirates don’t get seasick,” she said, helping to tie Hawke’s dark hair back in a ponytail before moving on to Fenris, doing the same but busying herself with an idle braid in his white hair as he moaned pathetically into a pot. “Perhaps I should have left you two on the docks.”

Hawke had been too sick to argue that she wouldn’t have allowed that to happen, too sick to wax poetic about how she wouldn’t want Isabela to leave her behind, but Fenris managed enough of a response for the two of them by jabbing the chiding pirate in the ribs with the sharp jut of his elbow.

—

It’s been a good few months now, however, and the captain and her lovers find their footing both on the ship and with each other. The bedding proved big enough for the three of them despite Fenris constantly offering to sleep below deck. He loves them, he’s loved them for a year and a half or perhaps even longer than that. Maybe three years perhaps even five or six. But even still he sometimes finds himself missing the ability to stretch out in his own sleeping space, finding his hands pressed against faces and legs hooked in a tangle. But Isabela argues for his sake that he’d miss waking up to a face full of cleavage, be it hers or Hawke’s, and he finds himself a weak man to argue against that logic, so his naked ass stays in bed between the soft press of a rogue and a mage.

“We make the perfect party,” Hawke jokes. “All we need is a good shield, and it’s a shame Aveline’s already spoken for.”

“Aveline would rather drown at sea than take to it as a pirate,” Isabela responds lightly. Fenris simply mumbles about how there isn’t enough space in the bed as it is, and Isabela barks a laugh as Hawke knocks his knees at his quip.

—

It’s been a good year now, and Hawke and Fenris are pirates and Isabela is content with her crew and with her ship and with the way in which the world turns even after Kirkwall has become a sparking point to something all three prefer to ignore. It’s been a good year and a day, when suddenly she finds herself taking ill and when Fenris finds her hunched over a railing in the aftermath of coughing up breakfast into the deep blue of the sea. The waters are hardly rough, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the sick came so suddenly that she had barely made it to the deck.

“I thought pirates don’t get seasick,” his voice rumbles, low and mocking though there’s a twinge of concern in his tone and a reassuring warm press of a hand between her shoulder blades, a gentle rub as Isabela sucks in a lungful of cool sea air and her nausea abates and abides.

“They don’t.” It’s said simply and almost stand-offishly as she shrugs off his comfort, going about the rest of her day without a hitch. But Fenris tells Hawke despite Isabela pointedly not telling her, and she senses worried eyes following her as she continues throughout the day. It’s annoying, she doesn’t like it. Maybe she should have kept them to the docks.

On a ship, vomit means nothing. And the idle aches and tenderness and bouts of fatigue could mean anything.  _Anything_  but  _that_.

—

It’s something that she bottles up inside. She draws in on herself and ignores Hawke’s wonderings and wandering hands warm with magic. It continues for a month and there’s not a drop of blood save for Hawke’s and the slavers on a ship they had felled. And it continues for another, ignored as though it would go away like an ingrown toenail or some other mild ailment.

And then halfway through the third month she wakes in terror and clutches Hawke’s shoulder. It’s a mistake there’s been a mistake she should have said something earlier so they could have done something earlier. There are plenty of things she can do but this isn’t one of them, and as Fenris sleeps her tears dry at Hawke’s chest.

Hawke had been a mistake of young lovers. There is greatness that comes from mistakes, and happiness too, and while her stomach clenches with both nausea and doubt and while the Champion-turned-pirate makes an offer for a reprieve and solution for the ailment, there’s a longing to her lover’s tone that has her wondering throughout the night and all through the day.

—

But it’s funny how people are made; in long dark nights with handcuffs and whipped cream and a tangle of limbs. Or with a quick fuss of hands in the kitchen on the table as the crew slept and as one kept watch to leave two to their devices. It’s funny how easily they happen after years of careful planning and mixed herbs made and perfected by Rivaini seers. She wonders if it had been forgetfulness or a purpose to her mindlessness these past few months. Reasons why she kept him close and let him finish close. Reasons why there was a tug of something else when she saw Hawke smile, a domesticity she never knew possible on a ship with a crew full of dirty pirates, a tattooed elf, a fugitive Champion, and their captain.

A captain who can no longer keep her breakfast down.

—

“I’ve never seen the crew this frightened of you,” says Hawke, laughing as she watches them scramble about.

“It’s because I look like a beached whale ready to eat them whole.”

“Would you eat them?”

“Perhaps…if my jaw were wide enough.”

—

Birth is just as messy and as violent as killing a man, but it’s far less fun. At any other point in time she’d find a humourous familiarity in their position: Hawke between her legs and Fenris combing her hair away from her face. But as of now she’s only concerned with the white-hot pain pressing down and the waves contracting through her that counter the lull of the ones lapping at her ship. These waves don’t lap, they pull her in and take her under. 

Cool hands rest at her thighs, calloused hands press a cloth to her forehead, and her own hands grip the arms of the chair she’s seated herself in, knuckles whitening. There’s a faint familiar pleasure coiling in places where it normally should be and would be if this had been the  _making of_  and not the  _having,_ and the noises she makes are not entirely unpleasant, much to her own surprise. Through bleary eyes she notices that Fenris is smiling and chuckling idly at her misfortune. “ _And here I thought childbirth was supposed to be painful._ ” She reaches up to throttle him, but he takes her hand in his and rubs his thumb over her knuckles soothingly instead, and she forgets why she hates him.


	2. bundle

She enters the world into her mother’s arms, a wailing thing covered in ick and blood. There’s relief and joy and tears (not from Isabela and not from Fenris they both deny it even though Hawke  _knows_  otherwise). There’s a change to the dynamic, an addition to the three, and along with happiness there’s a piercing fear, a quickening of breath and a blinking back of sweat as Isabela leans back and looks up at the ceiling after the child is cleaned and positioned at her breast.

Hawke comments on how the baby has Isabela’s hair, thick and dark, and touches it gently, downy wisps curling coarsely at the end. She carefully touches the shell of the child’s ear, the tips more pointed than other half-elves met. Fenris frowns at that.

“I thought half-elves looked more human than elf.” His voice was a low rumble next to Isabela, concern lining his tone. The captain looks, replacing Hawke’s hand with her own as she caresses the sleeping baby’s ear, the point smaller than most elves but as unmistakable of a mark as her dark olive skin is of her Rivaini heritage.

“What’s wrong with that?” an innocent question from Hawke, but neither Isabela nor Fenris say a word, an unspoken understanding that many still don’t get.

Isabela shifts, sitting up and against the headboard of the bed, undoing her tunic to nurse the child with a teat aching with milk, and she hums a bawdy song in a strangely maternal manner that is both alien and almost natural. She feels something wet fall to her shoulder and Fenris getting up and moving away and wiping his eyes in frustration with the back of his arm as Hawke remains at her bedside, listening to her lover hum and stroking her baby’s cheek with a crooked finger.

“This is silly,” Isabela says finally, moving to get out of bed but Hawke keeping her in place. She needs to rest even though she’s restless, the birth had been easy (she barely remembers the pain though the red crescent markings on Fenris’ forearm say otherwise). The pirate huffs instead as she settles back, holding the slumbering thing out for Hawke to take as though it were a sack of flour. She feels like crying, she doesn’t know why but she does, so instead she turns it into a frustrated noise and a wet inhale and she brings her hands up to scrub at her eyes.

“We’ll name the kid Bethany.”

That gives Hawke pause and she turns to look at Bela with large wide eyes, shining with  _something_  but Isabela ignores it.  _It’s silly, it’s ridiculous, what’s going on she had been pregnant and now she’s…_

“You’re more of a mother than me. Might as well give her a Hawke name.” she scrubs her eyes again; they’re wet. She had been pregnant but now she’s not, even with a still swollen (empty) abdomen and breasts heavier and larger than she thought possible.

It’s an ugly feeling, not a pretty one, but, as Fenris hovers awkwardly near the child’s crib looking down at a child he could barely believe to be real, Hawke returns and leans in close to kiss Isabela’s wet cheek, whispering nonsense about how beautiful this is, how beautiful she is, how beautiful this family is, how beautiful her child is  _how she loves her_   _and how well she did and how well everything is…_

And Isabela weeps, though not out of sadness.


	3. unnatural

isabela watching hawke hold their daughter, looking as natural as ever. a family woman through-and-through, having lost so much to a city left to ruin, but gaining so much from the coo of a child, from the soft down of dark hair. she has a thick head of hair, like mother, like father, and isabela laughs as she says to hawke that she’s no mother, even as the mage disagrees.

isabela watching fenris as he holds their daughter, always hesitant, more careful than he actually needs to be. he’s not afraid of the child but still of himself, but he no longer winces as small fat hands press against the burn of his tattoos, and he smiles small and to himself when he rests her head at the crook of his neck…and frowns irritated when white spit-up stains his black tunic, handing the kid off to hawke who laughs and cleans both of them up.

isabela holding her daughter while the others are above deck, child clasped to her teat and warm in her arms. it doesn’t feel right. it feels smothering and wrong even as something else feels right. she shifts, still holding the kid against her as she stands and makes her way out of the captain’s quarters, to yell orders at her crew while her tit hangs out and as her kid snuffles comfortably against her.

the crew doesn’t know what to make of the sight as fenris looks away and as hawke tries not to laugh at their confusion, but it’s one they’ll get used to soon enough.


	4. floating

He doesn’t know how to swim he admits sheepishly as he stands on the shoreline bare and shirtless, watching isabela wade up to her waist in the cool waters of a lake found some ways away from the dalish camp.

Her hands hover above the water as though to shake off the cold, and at his confession she looks at him over her shoulder, white teeth glinting behind dark lips in an amused smile, laughing with her usual abandon which he both admires and envies.

She exits the water, her bare body making him cautious, toes twitching against mud, looking over his shoulder as though wondering where Hawke and Merrill had wandered off to, leaving him alone with this woman and her warm, wet, shining skin.

Isabela extends her hand to him, motioning back towards the lake.

"At least come  _in_  with me,” she says, voice chiding but pleasant, and he takes her extended hand in his, fingers curling tightly around her wrist.

He finds that he trusts her even as the water hisses against his skin and tattoos, even as they move further and the water rises and wets his undergarments ( _they’re blue today_ , she noted as the two of them had removed their clothes together). They stop when the water reaches just below his shoulders, his heart beating fast and breath caught in his throat.

But she smiles and keeps holding his hand, keeps the water from rising further, and for a brief moment he feels weightless and light as they simply stand in the lake together.

She doesn’t teach him how to swim, but it’s here when he learns how to float.


	5. swimming

they teach her to swim before she can walk, a child of both sea and land

with warm reassuring hands isabela takes their daughter from her teat, sinking under the bath-warm water of a tide pool brimming with life. her and hawke remain in the shallow end, taking turns with guiding hands, watching the child squirm and move in the saltwater as naturally as she had in the womb, fat hands reaching for hermit crabs and gripping seaweed that she smears playfully across isabela’s face much to hawke's amusement.

fenris remains perched at the rocks, legs crossed and watching with brows furrowed in worry, breath catching each time young bethy’s head dips under the water, still tense even as she resurfaces and laughs and clings to the warm dark skin of her mother.


	6. braids

isabela with her fingers dipped in oil, running them through her daughter’s scalp on a particularly lazy afternoon. the ship is docked, the waters are calm, and the room smells of coconut and spices from their travels.

she finds gold trinkets to decorate her braids with, idle beads from broken noblewomen's necklaces, and her daughter jingles as she runs to greet her father and mother when they finally return to the captain’s quarters.

hawke takes her daughter in her arms, laughing as she bounces the small lanky child around on her legs as they sit. one eye looks as though it's beginning to swell, the beginnings of a bruise. her robes are tattered and singed from battle and fenris looks worn and weary even as he keeps his usual grace as he strides towards the bed and sits next to isabela.

"hawke thinks herself a danger," he says as he notices bela looking, and he runs his calloused palm soothingly along her leg. young bethy claps her hands as she tells hawke a jumbled story in the babblings of a toddler, and despite the bedraggled appearance and the shadows of sleeplessness under her eyes, hawke invests herself in the infantile ramblings.

"they're still looking for her. we were nearly found today."


	7. spark

auntie varania who plays with her niece under the shadow of a tree, nimble fingers teaching the budding young mage how to caress the flame of magic, encourage it, let it kindle and bloom in a reassuring light that doesn’t singe bedsheets in the middle of the night

_she holds the young girl’s hand between hers, feeling the familiar pulse of magic, a warm spark that glows and spreads and reaches and yearns_

_a fledgling fire, scared and uncertain._

_it’s familiar, and when she looks into the girl’s eyes and sees a fleck of her younger self reflected back in the fullness of bright green._

_varania squeezes her hands together gently, cradling the shaking hand, soothing the poor half-elf._

_"i had been scared too." she says finally, sitting forward as the girl looks away, "i nearly turned my blanket to ash when it manifested. your father…he…" varania pauses, an unused name at the tip of her tongue as she looks up and sees leto…no…_ fenris _standing carefully vigilant, still wary despite their reunion and despite isabela’s reassurances that his sister is someone who their daughter should see._

_varania shakes her head, returning her attentions to young bethy, offering a reassuring smile, attempting to smirk as though making a joke. her voice is hushed, low, and the child leans forward to hear it, a small secret between the two of them for no one else to hear._

_"he may not remember, but your father had been jealous. singed, but jealous." she chuckles quietly at the memory despite the dark times, and she lets go of the small girl’s hand, allowing her own small flame to kindle in an outstretched palm._

_"it may be scary, little one," the flame dances bigger, brighter, but it’s safe and contained and the warmth of its light comforting. her niece appears calm and lax the longer the fire flickers and the longer the fire remains controlled by her aunt. varania lets the fire spark, and bethy jumps but manages a small smile as sparkling embers fall harmlessly to the dirt floor of the inn._

_"but in the right hands…it can be a beautiful thing."_


End file.
